Kyle Nix’s family business is stronger for his leadership of Indiana’s onsite wastewater association. And so is the state’s onsite industry.

Nix, president and part owner of S&M Nix Enterprises in Depauw, has completed two terms as president of the Indiana Onsite Wastewater Professionals Association after several years as a board member.

He and colleagues have helped push through legislation that has improved the lives of some state residents and made installers’ lives easier, and the association now has the ear of officials in the state capitol.

“In the last couple of years, as a 501(c)(3) group, we have worked to get in front of our state legislators,” says Kyle. “Before, they didn’t even know IOWPA existed. Now they come to us with problems, questions and concerns. 

“The No. 1 thing we’ve been able to do is educate them and get a seat at the table, so when there is an idea to change something in the onsite industry, they come to us. I’ve talked to the speaker of our House of Representatives about IOWPA and the industry. I’ve sat in his chambers. I’ve testified in favor of legislation. I’ve met with Gov. Eric Holcomb in recent years.” 

He has fit in all that work around overseeing operations for a highly diversified business with specialties in onsite system installation, repair and inspection in an urbanizing area of south-central Indiana, with challenging soils and topography.

The company has 11 team members: Kyle and his parents and co-owners Steve and Moira Nix; PJ Kamer, foreman and equipment operator; Adam Murphy, Justin Thompson and Levi Senn, equipment operators; Lee Senn, grave specialist; Trenton Wilson, CDL driver; and Karson Nance and Shelby Watson.

Many Hats

Kyle’s parents, Steve and Moira Nix, started the business in 2005 while he was studying at Purdue University — he graduated in 2007 with a degree in animal science and two minors in agricultural economics.

“I was going to school to be a veterinarian,” he recalls. “I was stressed out because I didn’t want to work for somebody else. I wanted to open my own clinic right out of the gate, but I knew no one was going to give a kid right out of college enough money to do that.”

Meanwhile in 2004 his father, who had owned a grave-digging business for about 15 years, decided to bid on a contract to install underground lines for the local electrical cooperative. Kyle and a cousin helped put the bid together, and in 2005 they won the contract. 

“That’s how we got into excavating,” says Kyle. “We had no equipment. Mom and Dad got a loan. We bought a backhoe, a single-axle dump truck, a Ditch Witch trencher and a trailer. I would take time off from school to help here and there.”

Then they hired a local contractor who installed and pumped septic systems and arranged for him to use the family’s equipment. “He would put the systems in with his license, and my cousin and I would help him as laborers,” Kyle says.  

The next year Kyle and his parents passed the septic system licensing exam and became installers in their home county (Harrison). Kyle later became licensed in surrounding counties. After college he went to work full-time in the business. As the 2008 recession took hold, the family diversified into installing waterlines and digging basements and ponds. In 2011, Kyle acquired a minority ownership stake.

Diversification has been a key to keeping the business viable. Today, besides onsite and utility work, S&M Nix does bulldozing, driveways, trenching, directional boring, drains and culverts, building demolition, and more. The equipment inventory includes:

• Five Kubota mini-excavators (two KXO40, KXO57, U48, and U35
• Robex 160 and Daewoo Solar 130 excavators (Hyundai)
• Three Kubota skid-steers (SVL 90, 95 and 98) and a Cat 287C skid-steer
• CASE 580SN and Cat 420E backhoes
• Cat 939 and Liebherr 622 highlifts
• John Deere 450H dozer 
• Ditch Witch JT10 and 1220 Mach 1 directional drills

Kyle has a septic pumper-hauler permit, but so far he has not used it: “My neighbor is in the pumping business, so I support him and he supports me.” In his spare time, Kyle operates a grain farm with his children Raylen, Tinley and Kash and serves on the Harrison County Council. He and his wife Peyton have a small residential rental business and are opening a diner in 2025.

Varied Conditions

The area’s soils and landscape call for diverse treatment approaches. “We have a karst topography with sinkholes and caves, along with a lot of hills, some very steep,” says Kyle. “We have limestone and sandstone. We also have seasonal high water tables, fragipan soils, floodplains, rivers and tributary streams, and shrink-swell clay soils. It’s a gauntlet of issues.

“I recently visited a site where the owner has 40 acres and we had only one spot where we could put the system. It had 11 inches of compacted soil on top, a fragipan layer down about 37 inches, and a seasonal high water table.”

The company installs a few mounds, some basic gravel-and-pipe systems, and some drip irrigation, but mostly what Kyle calls sand-lined systems. These consist of a dug-out bed with a 6- to 12-inch layer of approved sand at the bottom, followed by special media such as the AES plastic mat and fabric-wrapped pipe (Infiltrator Water Technologies) or Eljen geosynthetic filter media. The system is then covered with sand and capped with soil.

Those systems come into play as urban sprawl moves north from Louisville, requiring solutions for challenging sites and small properties. The same is true for repair or replacement of systems from the 1960s and 1970s — a significant growth sector. “We’ve even started looking at ATUs for some drainfield rejuvenations,” says Kyle. “We have sites that will not accommodate a replacement lateral system, but if there is a biomat we can install an ATU for rejuvenation purposes.”

Pleasing Customers

For ATUs, S&M Nix is a distributor for Singulair Green systems (Norweco), sometimes used with drip irrigation. The company also installs Quanics by Anua foam media filters. “I am working on a project that will require a SludgeHammer system,” says Kyle. 

The company is working its way into commercial systems, ranging from small installations for general stores to cluster systems. One cluster project is a community system replacement using five-zone drip irrigation with pretreatment by a Quanics foam media unit. It will serve 25 homes and a church. 

Kyle takes pride in delivering quality components and workmanship. He uses mostly plastic septic tanks from Infiltrator and AK Industries. For concrete tanks he relies on S&M Precast (an unrelated company). Risers are mainly from TUF-TITE or Infiltrator. Preferred distribution boxes are Polylok Rhino and TUF-TITE. “We put risers on most D-boxes to provide better access without digging them up,” says Kyle. “We use Fernco service-weight gaskets to get good seals on our pipes and D-boxes.”  

Quality work includes close relationships with customers. “We always make sure we stand by the product,” says Kyle. “I let customers know they can call me anytime. They all get my cellphone number. I am on every septic site. Even if our people are there installing, I’m in and out throughout the process, getting my hands in the dirt. 

“What I can give customers is the statewide knowledge I have acquired, so they have peace of mind that they’re dealing with a professional. I make sure I’m more than an installer. I’m a source of support for people on septic systems.”

Given that attentiveness, it’s no surprise that most of the company’s business comes by word of mouth. However, S&M Nix also relies on a website, social media, some newspaper and radio advertising, and community philanthropy. “We support the school activities like band, archery and sports,” says Kyle. “I grew up as a 4-H and FFA kid, and we are heavily involved in those programs. We help the churches with their clothes closets and food pantries.” 

Serving the Industry

Kyle’s work with IOWPA arguably has the biggest impact on the business, beyond the benefits of learning new technologies and being at the forefront of the industry. His role as a county council member made him comfortable leading the association into an active role with state government.

At his urging, IOWPA hired a lobbyist three years ago. “At the time I was vice president and was really pushing for us to get involved,” he says. “We’re a broad-spectrum organization with members including health department staff, installers, pumpers, real estate agents and inspectors. We needed to have a voice.

“A few years ago our legislature was looking to move some control for onsite from the local health departments to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management as the overseer. We weren’t represented at that time, so all we could do was call our individual legislators and communicate with them. We managed to stop that, and I realized right then that we had to change.”

One bill the association helped get passed allows holding tanks to be used as permanent wastewater solutions where soil conditions preclude septic systems. Previously, holding tanks were allowed, but only temporarily.

The association also lobbied successfully for a bill allowing highly treated septic tank effluent from existing homes to be discharged into waterways where no other code-compliant method for managing wastewater is available. The water must be treated in a state-approved ATU and disinfected using UV light or chlorination/dechlorination. 

“I helped write the legislation and testified in favor before the state assembly and senate,” says Kyle, who chairs the IOWPA legislative committee. The measure was approved by the IDEM and was granted final approval from the U.S. EPA in November 2024.

The legislation would allow any of the state’s 92 counties to opt in. “We have houses around the state that had used discharging approved by the local health department,” says Kyle. “We found out that those homes were unlawfully permitted, and we needed to correct that.” 

Meanwhile, amid a housing shortage in the Hoosier state, homes were sitting vacant because the owners had no means to install a suitable septic system. “We invited some IDEM staff members to southern Indiana to meet with legislators and health departments to try and work out a solution,” says Kyle. “They quickly realized there was a crisis here that they could help with.” 

Still Growing

Amid all the success, Kyle is grateful to be part of a family operation: “The best thing I ever did was come home and work with the family. Being able to do that is very satisfying. One of my fondest memories is a septic site in Maukport where my dad and I put in a complete three-bedroom gravel/pipe system with just the two of us on a 100-degree day. Memories made with him have been important to me working here.”

As for the future of S&M Nix Enterprises, he sees prosperous times ahead. The business is moving into installation of gas lines and telecommunications infrastructure on top of utility work. Kyle observes, “We want to help fulfill the needs of our community as it grows, and we’ll continue to grow, too.”